The Haunting of Villa Diodati

Chapter The 232nd, presents Mary Shelly's Cyberman.

Plot:

The Doctor, Graham, Yaz and Ryan visit Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva on the stormy night in 1816 that Percy and Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and others told ghost stories that led to the creation of Mary Shelley's ground-breaking novel Frankenstein. The fam are under strict instructions not to drop any hints or otherwise influence her and just to soak up the atmosphere, but - who would have thought it - events are in play that involve a half-converted Cyberman who's a bit like Frankenstein's monster. Percy Shelley, who's missing, hiding in the cellar, accidentally absorbed a Cyber computer / superweapon / globby blob thing, which the Cyberman has been pursuing through time. The auto-defences built in to the device, coupled with Shelley's mind, create various horror movie tropes in the house, which the fam and the other poets, writers and entourage get frightened by until they can find Percy. Graham also experiences some actual ghosts, nothing to do with the Cyberman plot, who make him a sandwich (this is not explained). Despite having been given a warning not to give the lone Cyberman what it wants, the Doctor extracts its prize to save Percy, and hands it over. The Cyberman disappears. The TARDIS team leave to track it down using coordinates that Percy wrote down during his time under the influence.

Context:

I watched the story on my own one summery evening on the BBC iplayer, through the interface of an Amazon firestick plugged into our old but luckily still reliable TV. I'm waiting for the right story to come along to tempt the children back to watching with me; they're not too fussed about Doctor Who at the moment. Frankly, the right story might be the one (or one of the ones?) being filmed at the moment for broadcast in 2023 as part of the new Russell T Davies showrunner era, or probably Jodie Whittaker's big finale later this year. It might not be an old one - the next story lined up for the blog is a black and white 1960s six-parter, so whenever it may be that they rekindle their enthusiasm for the good Doctor, it probably isn't going to be soon.

First Time Round:

I watched with the whole family on the Sunday night of this story's debut BBC1 transmission on 16th February 2020, at the beginning - if I remember rightly - of a week off for the kids' half-term. I can remember no details of that watch, but I remember that all through February there were rumblings in the wider world about a coronavirus that everyone was more and more worried about. Within a month, the UK would be in full lockdown, and in the interim circumstances dictated that I went to the most populous city within commuting distance (London), and used the associated overcrowded transport systems, about 40 times more frequently than I would have normally in any given month; a couple of weeks after The Haunting of Villa Diodati I was at the BFI for the screening of a Doctor animation (see here for more details) but there were also trips for a training course for the day job, other work events, going to shows with friends, and day trips with the family. I was lucky not to catch Covid (or at least, if I did, to get it asymptomatically - there was no test to check at that point). 

Reaction:

Obviously, contentious views are good for clicks, but that comes at a cost of coarsening our collective dialogue. As such, I always try to be kind, rigorous and thorough in my reactions to Doctor Who stories here. It might be more fun, and certainly would take up less time and energy, to just say of something "it was shit", but it's not very useful. I've probably come close occasionally to saying a particular disliked Doctor Who story is shit, but I hope I've fully expounded on my reasons for thinking so. I don't often disagree with the critical consensus just for the sake of it, either, and always try to explain my reasoning (as I did last time when admitting that, yes really, I think Time and the Rani is good). The Haunting of Villa Diodati is generally well thought of by fans as accurately as can be gauged from online commentary; writer Maxine Alderton is lauded (and was the only writer aside from showrunner Chris Chibnall to contribute to the following series when it was shortened as an impact of the Covid-19 pandemic); like that contribution to Flux, Village of the Angels, her series 12 story is big on horror, which tends to make a story popular with fans. In the Doctor Who Magazine series poll, it was mid-table - fourth out of eight, but it was beaten only by the big two-parter series opener and finale, plus mid-season twist episode Fugitive of the Judoon, which won the poll, and featured massive revelations and returns. I think it's fair to say that most fans like it; I am out of step with this feeling. I found the story utterly and totally unengaging, to such an extent that I can barely think of anything to say. Don't all cheer at once (!) as I will force myself over this mental block and put something into words.

It's a solid concept, the Doctor meeting Byron and the Shelleys on this famous night of horror stories, and them then getting caught up in a horror story of their own; the use of a Cyberman who's not as complete or finished as normal, so looks more like the reanimated creature of Mary's Modern Prometheus, is also good. Like any such narrative, the risk is that it robs the historical figure of agency, suggesting that their imagination needed a big prompt. The classic series did this in the story Timelash, giving a character only revealed at the end to be H. G. Wells the idea for a handful of his novels. At least here, the historical personages are depicted pretty accurately; in the classic series Doctor Who story, Wells was the bumbling comic relief. Bryon's not so bumbling but still is mostly there for the lighter moments, including lots of flirting with the Doctor. It raises a smile, and the guest performances are perfectly good throughout, as are the designs to evoke the period. It's most definitely competent, and directed well. I think the problem is focus. Perhaps because of the worries about a plot that suggests that a woman in the 1800s wouldn't be able to come up with Frankenstein on her own, the story doesn't lean in enough into the concept, to my mind. If one is going to do it, better to do it full-bloodedly. The lone Cyberman does not appear until halfway through the episode's running time. He should instead arrive right at the beginning, perhaps exhausted and needing to galvanise himself with electricity; the rest of the story should be the Doctor and Co with the Cyberman, trapped in the house, and in passing working through every Frankenstein's monster cliché before the reversal (which is there in story as it aired) that this is no figure of pathos but a vicious killer.

Instead of this, the script throws every haunted house trope imaginable into the mix for the first 25 minutes, excusing it with some technobabble about defence mechanisms that is within an skeleton's hair's breadth away from "it was all a dream". The animated skull and bony fingers turn out to be a collective hallucination, just like the nightmare scenario of the building folding in on itself, so one could walk and walk and never escape (it made me, as a long-term fan, think of the Peter Davison story Castrovalva, of course). Throughout all that, I just wanted the script to pick one horror scenario for the characters to be in, rather than bombard me with several. There wasn't any particular moment that worked as an effective scare either - it's atmospheric, but never frightening or even surprising. One of the scenarios thrown against the hallucinatory wall to see if it'll stick is Graham's mini-subplot where he sees dead people; in some ways this is the most effective part of the story: it's fun to watch Bradley Walsh giving a down-to-Earth performance amidst the strangeness, trying to find the toilet and moaning about being hungry. The script seems to be jokingly suggesting the ghosts he sees were real, but the defence mechanism explanation is so confused and confusing there's no reason they can't be hallucination too, and this undermines the humour. Toisin Cole as Ryan is having an off-day and his humorous dialogue falls a bit flat too. Once the Cyberman finally arrives, it doesn't really do anything of note; almost all the guest characters cannot die as history notes that they survived the night, so only a couple of servants get bumped off; the ante can't get upped. The end sees the protagonists and antagonist leaving to continue the story elsewhere, which leaves The Haunting of Villa Diodati seeming like so much set-up, but not much more.

Connectivity: 

Both The Haunting of Villa Diodati and Time and the Rani feature famous historical Earth figures whose brains are collectively affected because of a returning classic series baddie.

Deeper Thoughts:

The Netflix of Analogies. I've tried to be a little less political in these sections of the blog recently, more for the sake of my blood pressure than anything else, but long term readers of the blog (Hi Mum!) will know that I very much dislike and disagree with the current Conservative government of the UK, the people that form that government, and their policies - if the drunken lurching from one half-baked reactionary slogan to another regressive tabloid headline can be called policy. At the time of writing, they are shaming my country by simultaneously granting themselves a flimsy legal cover for breaking international treaties while also recreating transportation, this time to Rwanda rather than Australia, and this time as punishment for the "crime" of seeking asylum at a time when the ruling party is unpopular and wants to feed red meat racism to the worst of its followers. It somehow makes it worse that they are as incompetent as they are vicious. By the time you read this, they will likely have stumbled on to something even worse. Compared to all that mess, and to every person impacted by the current cost of living crisis that their rabid posturing does nothing to alleviate, it probably seems churlish to concentrate on the vandalism they are doing in the area of broadcasting, but this is a blog about a TV show and I have to keep things vaguely on topic; plus, I think there's a sobering cautionary lesson to be learnt there.

Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, from various pronouncements she has made in her time in post so far, has made two things very clear; first, that she - on behalf of her party - wants to do away with public service broadcasting; what other impact can there be from privatising Channel 4 and getting rid of the licence fee that funds the BBC, two things she has explicitly stated were going to happen on her watch? Second, she has made it clear that she is not qualified for the position of Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. I'm trying to be kind, but it's hard to do so when watching Dorries's slow motion vandalism play out: she is cultured only in the same way sour milk is. Channel 4 is doing very well at the moment, and the recent consultation on Channel 4's future had over 50,000 responses from members of the public and more than 96% of respondents did not want the channel to be privatised; Dorries reversed this in a recent select committee appearance, claiming that 96% were in favour; this was either deliberate misinformation or bumbling - neither option reflects well on her. The government's own summary of that consultation, which is available online here, uses many weasel words to explain why it isn't going to take any notice of the responses and is going to privatise anyway. It would have been more concise to write "We can do what we bloody well like, and we don't give a toss for the public good", but corrupt administrations are never known for their directness. I wonder why they went to the bother of having the consultation at all.

The summary admits that Channel 4 ain't broke but is still going to be fixed, thus "The government recognises Channel 4’s success in delivering on its remit and its current financial performance. However, we cannot be short-termist in our thinking and must consider the longer-term outlook for Channel 4." This long-term outlook bullshit means that imaginary risks and opportunities that might come along in the future can be conjured up to justify anything. Any populist government will have trumped up (pun intended) threats and enemies they inflate in rhetoric that they can say they are protecting "the people" from; it feels like another step towards the abyss, though, to go from exaggerating current known situations to imagining and not even specifying hypothetical future risks, and burning down anything with that justification. What is particularly galling is the comparisons that are often made, including by Dorries herself in a tweet, to Netflix. The thrust is that Channel 4 and the BBC have to be able to compete with Netflix and similar subscription-funded streaming services. Watching the Villa Diodati story on the BBC iplayer is a similar experience to watching, say, Stranger Things on Netflix, and that similarity allows this con of false equivalence. Netflix does not provide news for a start, let alone radio stations and local broadcast journalism, and online services and all the many other things that the BBC provides. Even more galling about the comparison related to Channel 4 is that while the latter - as even the government concedes - is in rude financial health, the same cannot be said of Netflix.

The current and future existential threats to Netflix are far from imaginary. It lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, and its own forecasts predict it will lose millions more in the next few months. When this news was public, the share price took a dive. Yet, it is still the UK governments analogy of choice. Months after those bad results, the government Health Secretary chillingly said "We Have A Blockbuster Health System In A Netflix Age". No matter that in a subsequent press briefing, a spokesperson - possibly too young to remember Blockbuster video - seemed to think he'd meant 'blockbuster' as a positive, and no matter that Netflix is currently not an exemplar of an institution to which anyone should necessarily aspire, the meaning was clear. The NHS, another UK public service, is at risk of being replaced by a subscription service. As Russell T Davies said on this topic, on the BAFTA red carpet accompanied by Ncuti Gatwa on the day of the announcement that Gatwa was taking over as the Doctor, if you don't want the sell off of Channel 4, or the removal of the licence fee, "Go and vote differently". Such an action has to be good for the NHS's chances too. The trouble is, how much damage is this government going to do before we get the opportunity to vote them out?

In Summary:

Not good enough to be this century's Castrovalva, maybe this century's Timelash?